This mentality/mindset of basing preformance on old software/stands reminds me of those folks whom load up 3dmark 06 to see how high of a score they can get now ...

Simply put .... processor companies SHOULD be building for forward technoligies & not backwards ones (like mmx is there anything that actualy uses this extention anymore?) so to me this is amd doing smarter thinking then not smarter.

There is a small issue with this stance. On one hand, it is great that AMD has built in support for the latest generation of AVX, XOP, SSE3+ and other extensions in order to save on die space. HOWEVER, not including legacy support is like NVIDIA building a DX11 card with support for DX9 but lacking optimizations. Sure, there are quite a few DX11 titles on the market and there will be a TON more in the next 2 years or so but currently, DX9 rules the roost.

Like it or not, consumers don't have the money or willingness to run out every second, third or even fourth year and buy a new version of their most-used software. So here, in some ways, AMD is turning a blind eye to what's currently available and instead focusing on the future. At face value it is a laudable goal but the reality is that many people's software choices still use older extensions.

I still use MS Office 2007, Photoshop CS4, AutoCAD 2006 and other programs I am still perfectly happy with. Would I spend the thousands necessary for program upgrades if I bought a Trinity APU? Of course not since that would completely defeat the purpose of a budget-friendly system build.